This invention relates generally to the field of sports medicine. The invention relates more specifically to methods and devices for measuring metabolic factors relating to athletic performance and to designing training programs which account for such measurements.
The goal of athletic training is to attain an optimal athletic condition when an athlete is ready to compete without harming the athlete's body. Athletic training includes two major components. The first component involves training the required sports skills or technique. The second component involves training the power, stamina and the rate of muscular reactions. The second component usually includes three types of conditioning, applied at regular intervals: general physical conditioning; endurance training; and special training. General physical conditioning helps prepare an athlete for other types of training. Endurance training increases the metabolic capacity of an athlete. Special training concentrates on muscular activity specific for a chosen type of sport. Athletic training also causes activation of support systems—cardiovascular, respiratory, endocrine, excretory and nervous.
It is well known that certain metabolic factors are strongly indicative of an athlete's level of physical conditioning and potential for athletic performance. These metabolic factors are important for determining a person's level of athletic conditioning and for designing an optimal training schedule.
With slight variations, a cyclical training process is applicable to any kind of athletic activity. This process starts with a period of training aimed at gradually increasing an athlete's metabolic capacity, followed by an intensive period of training aimed at depleting the athlete's metabolic reserves.
Metabolic factors change over time and can be described in terms of temporal phases. When the athlete's metabolic factors reach maximum levels (during the “supercompensation phase”), the athlete achieves an optimal athletic condition and becomes ready to perform in a competition.
It is important to ensure that the supercompensation phase coincides with a competition in which the athlete will participate or the time of an intensive workout. Such timing requires a very experienced coach and a lack of physical and mental breakdowns on the part of the athlete. An experienced coach can subjectively estimate the phase of an athlete's metabolic factors based on the coach's intuition and feedback the coach receives from the athlete regarding the state of athlete's health. Traditional objective methods of monitoring metabolic factors, which include muscle biopsy, blood tests and gas-ergometry, are seldom used because they are cumbersome, time-consuming, traumatic to the athlete and expensive.
Due to the lack of suitable objective monitoring methods, athletes frequently over-exercise, resulting in “athletic overload syndrome” characterized by depression, atony, myocardiodystrophy, liver overtension syndrome and other symptoms. People who engage in physical activity for health reasons will also benefit from personalized training programs based on metabolic phases. Typically, they repeatedly engage in a similar physical activity of a submaximal intensity. Such activity enhances their general physical condition, but typically does not efficiently serve goals such as gaining muscle power, enhancing speed, losing weight or enhancing endurance.
Tying an exercise schedule to phases of metabolic factors would be a very efficient method for creating scientifically justified, efficient and personalized athletic training programs. However, in order to base an exercise schedule on phases of metabolic factors, one needs a fast, non-invasive and inexpensive method of determining metabolic factors.